Follow the author of this article

Follow the topics within this article

Canada’s prime minister voiced “deep sadness” on Monday after an armed Islamist group murdered a second Canadian hostage in the Philippines.

Robert Hall, 50, is understood to have been beheaded by Abu Sayyaf, an insurgent group fighting for a hardline Islamist state in the southern Philippines. His fate demonstrates how the methods associated with al-Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) have spread to Islamist movements across the world.

Hall, who was from Calgary, was one of four hostages abducted from the city of Davao on September 21 last year. The captives were taken to the remote island of Jolo, an Abu Sayyaf stronghold.

Another Canadian in the group, John Ridsdel, 68, was murdered on April 25. The death of Hall leaves two survivors: Marites Flor, a Filipino, and Kjartan Sekkingstad, a Norwegian.

Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister, said: “It is with deep sadness that I have reason to believe that a Canadian citizen, Robert Hall, held hostage in the Philippines since September 21 2015 has been killed by his captors.”

Later, a Filipino police spokesman said that soldiers had found a severed head on Jolo island. "Our troops thought it was a bomb but found out it was a head," said Superintendent Junpikar Sitin, according to the Associated Press news agency.

Abu Sayyaf had demanded ransoms for the captives. But Mr Trudeau restated Canada’s official policy of making no concessions to terrorists. "The government of Canada will not and cannot pay ransoms for hostages to terrorist groups, as doing so would endanger the lives of more Canadians," he said.

"We are more committed than ever to working with the government of the Philippines and international partners to pursue those responsible for these heinous acts and bring them to justice, however long it takes."